I had lots of fun on Facebook today, engaging in various debates and talking to friends about The Goodness Project. On the other hand, I lost an opportunity to expand the project because of my own narrow-mindedness.

This afternoon, vigorous and insistent knocking drew me downstairs to the front door where I found a twentysomething fellow wearing a Jesus t-shirt and a white-haired woman on my porch. An elderly gentleman was standing under my ash tree. (He was sheltering in the shade, they said.)

The fellow on my porch handed me information about their Bible church, and I responded as I usually do, with a combination of warmth and irritation. (No, thank you, I don’t need to be converted, and I’d like your church a lot more if you didn’t try. The fellow said, Oh no, we’re not trying to convert you. We just want you to know what will happen after you die and stand before God to be judged. I felt my anger rising, thought about engaging the fellow in a debate and then handed him back his stuff and told them to go.)

What I should have done was asked them how they define goodness. That would have been an interesting conversation!